Friday, November 30

Tonight I had the distinct honor to attend Jesus General's Cafe Wellstone/Birthday Party at the virtual world called Second Life. I actually do have too much of a first life to get involved in this, but tonight I was freer than usual and this was way fun. The General's Birthday is next week, he tells us, which means he and that other Jesus are both Sagittarius or Capricorn or sumpin. Anyhow, I apologize to the General in that my avatar got stuck in "fly" mode and I wound up in Second Life outer space. I'll try to get back some other time.

In the meantime I have a warning for the ladies. I dressed my avatar in what I thought was rather demure clothing: A long full black skirt and a somewhat lacy top with sleeve puffs or somesuch to provide a little more coverage. The problem is I could not figure out how in SL to look at the front of my dress. They don't have a lot of virtual three-way mirrors in SL, though I've heard other three-ways are pretty common.

Here's the dress as I saw it and wore it at the party:

Ahem. I started to "dance" using "animations" provided by the General his own self. My avatar swung around and oh my effing gawd...

Ma hunnies I could not be seen in public with such a small amount of boobular support without scaring innocent woodland animals wherever I appeared.

Anyhow. Thanks for the hospitality, Sir. Great fun, and happy birthday. xoxo

Oh my f-ing God... This is where politics and religion intersect in America?

Please make it stop.

Do you believe every word in the Bible, Blue Gal? Every? Single? Word?

Oh put down your paper-bound idol, asshole. Just because it has the letters b-i-b-l-e on the cover doesn't mean you're supposed to worship it. Idolatry is a big ol' commandment breaker, and Satan gets rock hard when you hold up the Bible, Ten Commandments, a cross, or anything else, rather than humbly bow your head in silence and thanks. The Devil loves a distracted Christian.

Beyond that, my personal religious beliefs are none of your business. I thank God that I live in America, where I can tell you it's none of your business, unlike the current GOP field, who apparently needs nuts like you to get a single vote. You and the GOP field are pathetic losers, "bless your hearts."

Thursday, November 29

Malaysia published a guidebook for Muslims in space, ...[which] tells how to perform ablutions, determine the location of Mecca when praying, prayer times and how to fast in space. ...The first Muslim in space, Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman, reported that, although he managed to pray and fast, he wasn’t able to face Mecca and couldn’t fully kneel on the ground.

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Apply here and let me know how walking down the catwalk, with contemporary style and urban class...for a year...with model-caliber (a.k.a. teh hott) women who haven't had any sex yet...works out for ya.

Friday, November 23

I saw him at Great Woods in the 80's. And performing live, he was in love with the music and there for the audience alone. There was not a single false moment, nothing there just for the music critics. Here he is in 1986, which explains why the bass is rocking and the band is dressed in silly clothes:

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I'm grateful this year. In fact I'm so grateful I'm walking around my house singing this hymn. I want to do a special shout out to Cunning Runt at Little Bang Theory, who has a really lovely post up and who knew he was capable of just this kind of beauty? You surprise and impress us, dear.

But there are some blessings I'm going to turn down this year. Please add to this list in comments, if you wish. And of course I'm grateful for blogging and my readers and the friends I've made online and off this year. Love on all of you.

Blessings I'd rather not partake in:

1. Rachel Ray's Pumpkin Pie Martinis. Good lord. It's not like it's peanut butter and chocolate, Rachel. Just because each of them is good (sorry Sandy Underpants, I happen to like Pumpkin Pie) does not mean they will be double-plus good together. And if this isn't a gateway drink for young people, I don't know what is.

2. Paula Dean's Fried Macaroni and Cheese Balls. It's not just the "deep-fried coronary on a stick" quality I can't handle. It's the idea that hand-formed balls of macaroni and cheese are sitting on a piece of waxed paper in my refrigerator while I sleep, and each little mac and cheese ball knows I'm giving them the boiling oil treatment on the morrow. Everyone knows what happens if they get out.

3. This tree. Okay, someone with a design department of their very own took the "Whos down in Whoville Christmas" a little too seriously. What looks good in a Dr. Zeuss children's classic usually does not ever look good in your house.

Wednesday, November 21

I promised you all that I would be posting about Loretta Nall's campaign to send sex toys to Alabama Attorney General Troy King. Loretta is an FOBG, and she, like a lot of us here, is fed up with the state gubment's interest in making illegal sales of vibrators and other items clearly designed for the purpose of, well, orgasm. We have just a few problems more pressing here in this state: the fact that we outdo some third world countries on poverty, that our State Constitution benefits no one but United States Steel (USX, if you're so hard up you need to get your stock market tips here.) Problems? In Alabama? They spend my tax dollars attempting to prohibit sales of vibrators? Don't get me started.

I think Loretta has a terrific sense of humor but she is also an amazingly sharp and intelligent woman. She sent Troy an inflatable pig, which apparently has in its nether regions the capacity to pleasure an Attorney General, who until he received said pig, was more familiar with fucking the populace up the ass with blatant born-again pandering.

But I'm not nearly so subtle or politically astute as Loretta Nall. And to save money, I've chosen to send virtually, here via the miracle of the interwebs, the Decadent Indulgence 2 Vibrator.

As I pondered how to approach this post, I realize I am restrained by my own sense of decorum, and I'm perfectly content to be. Sure, I could post the full demo video here, but let's not, shall we? I feel the blog blindfold should be kept on at least in a pretend way, and and I'll keep my blog vibrator-advertising free, especially since they're not paying me to pimp their merch.

I like this demonstration, though. This young man has a future in improv, or something, and he provides an amazing public service in under a minute:

Okay you're probably wondering if Blue Gal her own self owns a "Rabbit" or has colluded with those selling same. Hey, none of your damn business, but I will tell you that most of the good Alabama Baptists I know buy their sex toys off the internet. Trust me, every postal carrier in the state, and hey, now every mailroom clerk at the State House, knows exactly what kind of merchandise is in a plain brown package from "Delaney Research Corporation."

But I will reveal my own tastes and proclivities this far: the Decadent Indulgence II has "over 300 functions including a new on-off switch that allows you to turn off any function for even more variation during sex play."

Oh brother.

Folks, I don't want my laptop computer to have over 300 functions. That's way too complicated and if I have to RTFM in order to enjoy myself solo...

"Well, duh, Blue Gal," I hear some folks saying. "You're not supposed to enjoy it SOLO. You hand it over to your partner and he gets to play with it, and you...."

Oh, great. A guy who needs a gadget with three hundred functions in order to get interested enough to please? Forget it. He's in the living room, watching MacGyver and hacking my vibrator to run off his Playstation. Literally.

Sunday, November 18

Earlier this month this blog celebrated its third birthday. I really should sign up for one of those free reminder things.

I had a rather off-putting f2f conversation with another blogger recently. The talk was supposedly about why don't I have my own domain name. I admit that bgalrstate is annoying as hell to find, though if you google "blue gal" you'll find it soon enough. Then we talked about how shitty it is that Blogger doesn't allow threaded comments. After all, that would lead to repeat visits, more hits. Ah, now we get to it, circuitously, cleverly, just as a clever person who wants the secret bomb code and will get it through charm rather than torture...these conversations are never about domain names or comment threads or blogging platform apps...

They're always about how many hits you get. And how to get more.

Full disclosure. I don't know how many hits this blog got last week, or yesterday. I could guess, but basically I check statcounter so I can thank those blogs that are kind enough to link to me. I don't check to see how many of my readers are just passing through, and how many are sitting back with two fingers of Scottish single malt to stay awhile or stay the night. (Actually that all-too-faithful reader probably just left his/her laptop on by accident.)

And yes, yes, yes, I do write for a couple blogs that get more hits than this one. Just a few more hits.

So to the fellow blogger who asked me in total frustration about this blog "Don't you WANT more readers?", my response that I could get readers anytime I wanted meant that I (a) get my popularity jollies at the big blog, (b) take readers at any blog totally for granted, and (c) have a right to because I'm connected to the "A-list" so fuck you if you don't want to read my brilliance. [Yes, there are bloggers who write stuff like (c). It kinda makes me scratch my head, hide under my desk, and despair for this lovely stage upon which we have found ourselves.]

Popularity jollies? Are you kidding me?

The only thing I really want to say in response to those charges, and that's what they are, make no mistake, is that the word "blogger" has become a perjorative in my own home. Blogging, to certain people, is "wasting time" in front of the computer.

And apparently I'm deluding myself in thinking it's about writing and helping in our own humble way to build a real breathing community.

The hell I am.

If you are one of my regular readers, you are not here because I'm any good at "blogging." You are here because you like to read what I write.

You are a miracle. I can't believe you are here. Thank you.

I remember the day I discovered that, all of a sudden, the majority of my readers were people who did NOT know me personally. I was in awe, and I still am.

But it is not about the hits. It's not about whether you're an a-lister or not.

Better and more popular bloggers than I have said so. Folks, the blogger who wrote the words below, Steve Gilliard, died this year. We're still linking him and quoting him and learning. It's not because of his techorati rank, which, make sure you name-drop it at the next Eschaton blogroll cocktail hour, is probably down from the time when he was alive. What kind of traffic strategy should a dead blogger adopt? Maybe he should get a new domain name.

Jesu Christi. Gilliard is sitting in blogger heaven laughing his (barbeque) wings off at the thought, I'm sure.

But he knew. Blogs are never about the hits and the links. They are about the writing:

Why the fuck do you care if Atrios or Kos has you on their blogroll. Does it feel like a pat on the head? A reward?

The ONLY blog you should worry about is YOURS. None of those people matter. It doesn't matter who links to you, only who reads you.

A good blog draws readers, a bad one doesn't. People begging for space are little better than the teens hopping around a Meat Packing district club hoping the bouncer likes them.

If you think a link on one of these sites will help your site grow, you're deluded. Only your work can help you. Cyberbuddying up to Atrios means nothing if you suck. I've never, ever exchanged a link or asked anyone to link to here. Why? Because I felt if people wanted to read this site, they would find their way here. You need to have the same confidence in your work.

It doesn't matter what other people do.

The only thing I could add to that wisdom is that cyberbuddying up to Atrios means nothing if you're the blogosphere's answer to William Shakespeare, either. And it doesn't matter if your blog gets five hits, five hundred hits or five million.

It. Doesn't. Fucking. Matter.

It's time for a pep talk.

One of those pep talks from this blog mama that lets you know that no matter if you've been blogging for three years or three weeks, whether you have big traffic or small, whether you despair of ever, ever getting one more reader, you are in service to art, the Revolution, your own creativity.

And being in service, to art, revolution, and creativity? Those are some damn good things to serve. Serve them on a platter. Serve them up in a gratuitous YouTube, just because you like the song:

Being in service to art, revolution, and creativity requires commitment, passion, and above all, humility.

And it is never a matter of who you know, or who knows you. It is a matter of what you know and how you say it.

That guy/girl you snogged in Chicago [last year] lives seven states over and it's time for round two.

By the way, if the one you snogged in Chicago hasn't called since last year? Chances are....

Perhaps it's needless to say, Netroots Nation top-ten writer, you can fuck me, but not in the "snogging" way. (And memo to Mister Progressive Web Copy Writer: it's not too late to go on strike. Please.)

By the way this is Blues Traveller and it's a damn good song. If you're not into anime just close your eyes and digga groove.

Friday, November 16

Okay, death has nothing to do with it. Except some of this stuff makes me wanna die, and other parts make me wanna kill.

Here's the deal: For the past two years or so, every single time I fly from point A to my final destination, somewhere in some airport or airplane, I encounter a grown woman in possession and use of a "Hello Kitty!" consumer item.

I have to confess that there are people in my own household who have been known to wear "Hello, Kitty!" underpants. Their ages are 3 and 5. And they received same as a gift (NOT from their mother) to celebrate successful potty-training. That to me seems entirely appropriate.

On the way to Washington, the woman in the window seat in front of my row was using a "Hello Kitty!" CD player. Grown woman.

I have, in more than one airport, seen grown women talking on a "Hello Kitty!" cell phone. The following is not for the feint of heart:

I call myself a nice person. I call myself a peace-loving Quaker.

It makes me want to kill.

On the way back to Alabama I thought about this post and despaired that I had not kept an eye out for "Hello Kitty!". THAT MINUTE a grown woman with a "Hello Kitty!" backpack appeared. I am not sure whether to count her as an actual "Hello Kitty!" Airline Travel Death Watch successful find, because she had a young daughter with her, and it may have been the daughter's backpack, but the fact remains that the grown woman was wearing the backpack her own self, so I count that as a yes.

I have been told that the "Hello, Kitty!" phenomenon is primarily generated among Asian women, but none of the "Hello, Kitty!" Airline Travel Death Watch finds have been Asian, and I know several Asian women who have far too much maturity and taste to have succumbed to same. For some reason, for me, it does seem to be an airline travel phenomenon. Perhaps, just perhaps, these women are saving their "Hello, Kitty!" items as a talisman against hijacking. I really have no other explanation.

But I do know that the Asian phonomenon is exactly why Pete T. puts a "Hello, Kitty!" sticker on the back of his guitar when he tours Japan:

Gentlemen, I hate to do this, but in service to the Revolution, I feel you must watch this two minute video. If we do not stop the menace that is "Hello, Kitty!", this could be the venue of your next sexual encounter. (And yes, you kinky boy, at the minus-one-seventeen minute mark is your next partner.):

Thursday, November 15

So last night I got about five hours of sleep and I had hopes that after the kids were off to school, I could get some more.

Got the kids dressed and figgered, I'm not gonna get dressed. I'm just taking 5yo into her carpool, I don't have to get out of the car, I'm wearing a shirt that covers everything, etc.

So we get stuck behind an accident on Hwy 31 for 20 MINUTES. We're all of a sudden...late. I have to "check in" the 5yo.

I have to walk into her Episcopal Day School, which happens to be attached to the Cathedral, wearing nothing but black lacy camisole and soft knit pants with lace around the bottom. I'm also wearing athletic socks and my walking shoes, and a blue man's shirt, which, yeah, does cover a multitude of sins but still.

My only option is to totally bluff my way in. Big smile, hold my daughter's hand and take proud strides as long as my short legs will carry me....

Of course, there is the "running-late mom uniform" -- usually sweatpants and no makeup, which is basically what I had on, but even when I'm running late I manage to put on a damn brassiere. This was just hubris, plain and simple.

Wednesday, November 14

**yes I'm totally aware that by striking out the word "woman" I'm engaging in a grammatical self-mutilation imposed upon my internal "miss/ogyny" which is wholly due to the patriarchal "web" structure in which I am condemned to publish/subvert. Please be assured I do so ironically.

Does it matter that she has teh titz? Well, on one level, hell yeah.

But I kinda got into it with Chicago Dyke (goddess) at Corrente this morning. She's asking the question why in 39 categories at the Webfuck Awards there isn't one specifically geared towards women/feminist bloggers,

C'mon Webfuck Award people: we agree to disqualify the 6,081 women currently logged into CafeMom.

Seeing as I spent more time on my comment at Corrente than I do at some posts, it's time for a lil' cut and paste:

I would not want to win a “best woman blogger” award. That’s placing me in a ghetto. I write about politics and lots of other crap because I’m a writer, not because I have ovaries.

“Best feminist blogger”? Fuck. The GUY (natch) writing the award ballot wouldn’t even consider me. I post about Esquire, not Ms. I would apply for a job at Esquire, not Ms.

Part of the problem is that people like people like themselves and most blog readers (even at my blog, where the pen is dipped in the lovely salty-sweet scent of estrogen juices) are manly men of a certain race and a certain education/income level.

The blogosphere will become less of a man's world when more women get interested and involved and committed to reading and writing and commenting on political blogs. Um, folks? I'm doing my part for the team.

I also will not spend one nanosecond trying to figure out if Digby or Shakespeare's Sister or Pam's House Blend or Feministing is the better blog. Unless only one of them is running against Assless Slugs or Michellemabelle. Often those battles are to beat the right wing, rather than pick the best blogger.

And remember, the easiest way to have equality is to presume it. We do have battles to fight and goddamn I'm there to swing my pen (not as penis, sorry Norman Mailer. RIP, by the way.) for anyone suffering from oppression. But am I going to differentiate myself as a blogger from other bloggers because I'm female? And demand an award category for it?

Tuesday, November 13

...Darkblack and I had personally driven a nail into the head of a kitten, and YouTubed it's writhing and bleeding death. (The sacrilegious artwork originally appeared here.) Don't ever think there is no religion in the blogosphere.

FOBG Kathy of Birmingham Blues lost her brother this past weekend. It's a short sentence, but it's a powerful one: He was an activist. We don't have enough of those in this country, but especially here in Alabama.

Executive Director The Reverend Barry Lynn, and the rest of the Americans United staff, totally rock. I'm so honored by my Postie Award, I can't tell you.

And what is really cool about it is the designer, who is on the AU staff (BAC please put her name in comments, okay?) used my Techorati cloud as the background for the award. So a lot of you bloggers and salonies are listed on the award too. Plus words like..."Knit."

At the bottom it says, "To a fierce blogger in safeguarding the separation of church and state 07". I'm deeply honored.

I seriously think certain right wing men get turned on by having women mad at them. As if, they're really, really into it. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Still, I'm giving all three of them an ick factor of eleven. I know they're thinking "Ooh I'm gonna make the feministas all mad at me and dang that's good television." Shudda fuck up, boys. "Good television" is an oxymoron, and you? You're just a moron. It's not the feministas who are maddened by your idiocy, it's anyone with a b-r-a-i-n.

Yup, we really are getting used to the idea that right wing = teh kinky you may like but we would rather not know about. Seriously, I wish Tucker, BillO, and Tweety would just form a private, very private, club of some kind, instead of advertising for it on their shows. Where we bloggers sometimes feel a small sense of obligation to talk about it.

Wednesday, November 7

[Image stolen from Bay of Fundie, the latest addition to the BG blogroll. Can't have too many smart funny athiests around here, 'specially those who highlight the laffs coming from the Creationist Museum.]

I’m not going to go all Anne Frank on you. I don’t think we humans are essentially good or evil. We’re human. We eat too much, buy stuff we don’t need, scream at our kids, run red lights, and send ten dollars to help a homeless kitten while walking by homeless people every day on the way to our urgent and meaningless morning-long meeting with sociopathic Powerpointers. [busted that googlewhack baby]

And which of us are “fit” to be Americans? I would argue for disqualification of anyone who can identify Simon Cowell, and that makes me unfit, as well.

But Drifty's post got me thinking a lot about what makes us fit Americans and also what makes those of us who choose to do so, to be fit Christians. Being worthy of either name is a tough task. The self-proclaimed U.S. leadership (since I will never accept that W. was actually elected) corrupts the word patriot. And the church as embodied by Falwell, Dobson, and the majority of voters in the county where I currently live, really truly falls short of any rationally arrived-to definition of “follower of Jesus.”

Interestingly enough, the reason the so-called Christians make such lousy so-called Americans is because they have no understanding of God. The only compassion their god shows, if you believe the Christian Right’s agitprop, is for the unborn, and occasionally far-off orphans.

They don’t get it.

Their god is, again, with the exception of the unborn white baby, a god of privileged power and angry vengeance. He (yup) is a god of the death penalty. A god of No New Taxes. A god of Not in My Backyard. The god of white middle-class comfort trumps all other political goals or social rationales that would require us to be compassionate for those Jesus called upon us to love.

It’s like that fortune cookie game where you read the fortune and add “in bed”? To really understand the typical whitebread Christian, take a Bible verse, particularly a command from our Lord Jesus Christ, and add the words “ but at the mall” to the end:

One major reason Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Ethan Allen and the vast majority of early Americans rejected the merger of church and state was the lingering stench of Puritan intolerance. The infamous theocratic murders of the Salem witch trials sickened the American soul, just as today's power grab by Karl Rove's new corporate fundamentalists creates an atmosphere of intolerance and fear, defined by the world's largest prison gulag.

It's a witch trial, people. We're the good Christians, and they are witches. Burn them, hang them, and praise YOURSELF that you so clearly serve the one true God.

See, as long as you don't have to take your faith into the private sphere of your youporn bookmark or airport bathroom stall, you can still vote for the candidate with the loudest "protect the unborn" blowhorn, step on the Bad Arabs [ooh let's use a big word like Islamofascist 'cause it makes us look, you know, intellectual], and feel you are a good Christian.

yeah I did link Pammy (first and probably last time ever) to the word "intellectual" 'cause I'm feeling a little silly/giddy today. My apologies to anyone who actually clicks the link. John! Bolton!

Rot in hell? Nah. My prayer, really, is that those bland blind proclaimers of Jesus yet deniers of Christ should rot in their own mindset. That is more punishment than I could ever wish on anyone, and I'm too sad and sorry and...

I leave Saturday for a blogger meet-up sponsored by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State / First Freedom First. I'll be meeting with science bloggers, atheist bloggers, and a few Christian bloggers like myself. We all believe that the separation of church and state is critical to our national identity. And I believe that I cannot practice my faith in God or my patriotism as a citizen of the United States, without it.

We're citizens of the big wide world that God loves with all the love there is. Rock on folks:

Sunday, November 4

I served in a church nursery this morning and some children and I worked on this exact jigsaw puzzle:

And the whole time we're putting together this fairly easy 100 piece puzzle I'm cracking up at the theological lesson not contained therein. Thank God I didn't have to teach them anything beyond let's do the edge pieces first.

Sorry for the extra late post I was needed at a bigger blog today. Not that that's any excuse.

And I was so busy thinking about my video blog for tomorrow I drove to the grocery store without my purse this afternoon. Must be the circadian rhythm thing.

BTW you have probably seen this but I love that teh internets allow an artist with this kind of talent and cleverness to get his artwork 1.5 million views in six days. Dang good.

Friday, November 2

Okay deep, cleansing breath. Because we bloggers are very good at venting our anger. We rage against injustice, rant about the crimes of the current world order, and add a heigh-ho and hearty fuck you (tm) to anyone who disagrees.

It didn't help my mood, not a bit, that Halloween morning I walked into the local public school of two of my three children, to find a grown woman wearing (supposedly for Halloween, but still) a miniskirted Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz costume. It turns out every third grade teacher was dressed in a Wizard of Oz costume (my son's teacher was Glinda) but I suspect Dorothy there was the only one who got her costume clicking on a sidebar ad at some spank-my-ass chat room. But I digress.

No, what really got my goat was the editorial earlier this week in the NYFT about "Honey, I shrunk the Congress." It's a good editorial as good editorials go, arguing for the restoration of checks and balances and that Congress is EQUAL to the Executive in terms of constitutional power and well, why don't they "act as if" for a while so that maybe someday they won't feel like complete frauds for overriding a veto?

What made me raging mad was this passage:

Right now, standing up for Congress may appeal more to Democrats than Republicans. The issue of reining in presidential power is beginning to gain traction among conservatives, however, as they contemplate the possibility of a Democrat — particularly Hillary Clinton — as president.

Okay I'm so over getting angry every time I see her name in print. What ticks me off is that our Constitution, like everything else inside the greasy DC Beltway (I'll be there next weekend for a blogger meet-up, be warned) is now just one more political football that is fine for a doormat at my house but not at yours.

And then there's Mukasey and the waterboarding thing. It's not about waterboarding, but kudos to the committee members who made it about that. The ploy, which allows you Democrats to seem reasonable and prudent with your colleagues across the aisle, seems to have worked. The problem, gentlemen and a few ladies, is that those across the aisle need to be removed from office for...oh nevermind.

Here's my sense of what is called for in terms of collegiality: if Mukasey or any other suited twit wore his candy cock ring into my senate Judiciary Committee meeting and started spouting trash about the Constitutional provisions that George Bush has thought such an inconvenience, providing my committee patient assurance that, in the legal opinion of many well-regarded blind fascists, the President can legally do whatever the fuck he wants, this is the reception he'd get:

Thursday, November 1

Listen to this short news piece aired on NPR this morning. It's about the FBI's investigation of Blackwater in Iraq.

The correspondent is NPR's "resident FBI expert." And part of the problem, for sure, is that she talks to us about FBI investigations like we've never watched a Harrison Ford cop movie, or even an old Bond movie, not to mention a single episode of CSI-Kokomo, ever.

Gee whiz, these FBI agents investigate crimes after they happen. And they use more gee whiz technology that is garnished from surveyors equipment...

Yeah, the part about re-enacting Blackwater's crimes into a computer simulated "video game" in order to investigate gave me the creeps too, 'specially since the killer in this instance is a gang of hired thugs paid for by OUR Defense Department:

But maybe what's really bothering me is that this story makes it seem as though someone is actually doing something about Blackwater when we all know that's bullshit.